Night Terrors
by The Fanciful Fangirl
Summary: Darth Vader has been alone for a very long time but things are changing. Someone is having a nightmare.
1. Night Terrors

It had been a long time since Darth Vader had shared close quarters with anyone.

Even the Jedi, who had totted themselves as above attachment, had often shared close quarters. Some nights, alone in his meditation chamber, Vader swore he could hear Obi-Wan's light snoring and Ahsoka's periodic whispering. On his darkest nights, he could hear the sound of Padmé's breathing, light and soft. All echoes of a past life.

But presently, Vader was awoken from his meditation by the piercing sound of a child screaming and waves of fear rolling through a tentatively reformed bond.

It had only been three weeks since Moteé Moenia had been found dead in a spaceport in the Outer Rim. Five of Padmé Amidala's handmaidens had been the only people outside of her family whom the late monarch had told about her marriage to Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight. Fewer still were the number of handmaidens, who knew that two week sabbatical that Padmé Amidala had gone on less than a year after the onset of the Clone Wars, had been a ruse. Only Moteé, Sabé, and Ellé had been trusted enough to care for the child who had been born secretly during that sabbatical. So, when Padmé had departed for Mustafar to chase after her husband, she had sent Moteé to collect and spirit away her force-sensitive daughter.

Vader quickened his pace to the residential section of his quarters as the screams continued and his seven year old's fear blossomed into pure terror in the Force.

Anakin Skywalker had never had the privilege of spending extended time with his young daughter. The child usually stayed secretly with Padmé's family on Naboo and rarely made the trip to Coruscant. The rarity of those trips, paired with Anakin's own frequent missions offplanet meant his visits with Veré Naberrie Skywalker, were few and far between. He could recall most vividly, a rare day where he and Padmé had both been at her apartment at the same time as one of Veré's visits. The girl had grown considerably since Anakin had last seen her and she'd begun babbling incessantly. It hadn't taken long for the young Jedi to realize that his daughter's connection to the Force had grown as well. She felt like a bright, warm light in his mind. He'd spent the rest of that day lightly forming their bond in the Force and masking her Force presence from any possible intrusions. Every time he had brushed his Force presence by hers, Veré had giggled.

These were the moments that had haunted Vader's dreams before he had found the girl again.

After his ascension to the rank of Sith apprentice, Darth Vader immediately tried to collect his daughter from his late wife's family on Naboo, to no avail. The girl had been taken from the planet before her mother and unborn sibling had even passed. Vader had enlisted a few well paid, discrete agents to watch for any signs of his wife's handmaidens or a young human female Force sensitive.

Seven long years into his new life as Palpatine's obsidian enforcer, one of Vader's spies had alerted him to a mysterious death on a minor system deep in the Outer Rim. Moteé Moenia had deserved more in her death than to be left behind. Vader had thought briefly of the kind hearted woman who had often facilitated meetings between himself and his wife. She had been brave too. Brave enough to care for and hide the child of one of the galaxy's most powerful force wielders in a time when such abilities were banned. However, she had not been able to keep Veré from using her inherited abilities in sight of mercenaries searching for Force sensitive children. However, her memory and the obvious signs of her struggle to protect the child of Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala had managed to destroy a barrier that had long since erected itself around Darth Vader's shattered soul.

Even he was surprised when the sight of Moteé's prone form had brought the words of a Tatooine slave song of mourning to his mind. No one would have believed that Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, Supreme Commander of the Galactic Empire, had allowed the song to play out fully in his mind.

The mercenaries had not been difficult to find. Beings who thought themselves justified in the business buying and selling children, were never, at least where Darth Vader was concerned, smart enough to hide their activities. Certainly not smart enough to outrun a vengefully paternal Sith Lord.

Nevertheless, some damage had been done, emotionally, if not physically, and Vader keyed open his daughter's makeshift sleeping quarters to find all of the blankets he had placed on her had been thrown to the floor. The sheets beneath her were coming off of the bed itself as she thrashed fitfully in her sleep. Her arms blocked her face from some unseen attack as she screamed.

"No, no!" Her voice was becoming strained even as Vader reached her side. Initially, she struck out with her limbs when her father tried to touch her shoulder.

The Sith did perhaps the last thing anyone would have expected and thought hard about what Anakin Skywalker would have done.

Vader reached out slowly this time, with both his hands and the Force, sending calming waves towards his daughter's mind. He thanked his wife's goddess that their Force bond had been intact after all these years. That was the only reason Veré had recognized him at all when he had recovered her from the mercenaries.

_You don't deserve her_. A voice, that sounded far too much like his own, whispered. Even as Veré started to settle her thrashing arms and legs, Vader felt an overwhelming doubt wash over him.

_Once she knows what you are, she'll never stay._

_ She'll hate you, abandon you, like everyone else. _

_ Why would she want to stay with a stained, disgusting, murde-_

"Daddy?" The words broke Vader from his internal battle and he opened his eyes, despite not remembering closing them. Through his red tinted lenses, he saw his daughter's blue eyes staring up at him. She was shakily rubbing her eyes, like she was afraid she was seeing things. Vader, or perhaps Anakin, pulled his daughter into a protective embrace and Veré leaned her head on her father's armored shoulder. While he could not make his words loud enough for the vocoder to register, Vader called into the Force.

_"You're safe here with me." _

"I know." Veré intoned softly as she yawned and closed her eyes.

Vader knew he should place the girl back in her bed and return alone to his meditation chamber but everytime he had that thought, Veré seemed to cling tighter to his shoulder. So, he pulled his cape up, wrapping up the small, now sleeping child and walked to the lounge in the main room of his quarters. They were spartan and dully colored, nothing like he imagined Veré would have preferred. He made a mental note to ask her about that when she awoke.. For now, however, he was content to rub small circles in his daughter's back and wait for the next nightmare.

But the next morning, when the sun came up over the planet they were orbiting, neither Vader nor Veré had been stirred from their place by any nightmares. 

A/N: So it's been a long time since I've uploaded a story. This OC has existed in many forms over the years and it's been awhile since I've been able to write any fanfiction that felt worthy of posting.

I hope you enjoyed it. Comments and reviews are always appreciated!


	2. Blood Colored Lenses

Darth Vader had a painfully good memory. He also has quite a few things in his life that he wished he could forget. He usually quashed down his more emotional recollections with the swift fist of the Dark Side, but that only worked when he was awake.

He could feel her fingers in his hair, hair which he no longer had. Her face was knit with worry and desperation as she gripped his skull, her fingers dancing atop the nape of his neck. _That _day was played once again in his mind's eye. The day when he lost everything, or more accurately, the day that he threw everything away. The vision of Padmé before him, looked exactly as she had that day, effortlessly beautiful even though her face and body were swollen from carrying his child. The child he had killed, along with its mother.

The vision before him, however, shifted. Instead of seeing Obi-Wan emerge from his wife's silver Nubian ship, Veré toddled down the ramp. She appeared to be the age she had been then, barely two years old, but when she reached her parents, her voice sounded much older.

"Daddy, wait!"

However, the comforting sight of his daughter was not enough to overpower the dream, which seemed determined to cause Vader as much pain as possible.

Obi-Wan strode down the ramp on cue and to young Sith's horror, the scene continued as it had in the past. Vader felt himself swell with anger and though he tried to will past events to change, they played out exactly as they had nearly seven years prior. His hand burned as it raised up and Padmé reached for her throat. Then, he watched the vision of his daughter shift and she appeared to be her current age, the one she had been hours before when Vader had placed her peacefully in her bunk. The older Veré's hands went to her throat as well and she screamed.

Vader's eyes shot open. His body thrashed inside the bacta tank. He forcibly willed himself to calm and breath slowly through the respirator that covered his mouth. This took him several minutes. Once his breathing was under control, Vader reached out with the Force experimentally. His emotions always burned in the Force when he awoke from a nightmare.

_Jedi don't have nightmares._

In that state, it took Vader a moment to realize a presence outside the tank.

He had long grown accustomed to the strange tingling of bacta in his eyes, so he forced them to open in the warm, thick liquid. Veré sat in a pile of blankets at the base of the tank. Her eyes were locked with Vader's and though it was hard to tell, it seemed that his daughter had been crying. Without moving her gaze from her father's scarred face, the girl placed a hand on the tank.

Vader's eyes drifted to Veré's neck when he noticed that her other hand was resting there protectively. He felt hot shame rise up in his chest and he was unable in his newly wakened state to prevent that feeling from bleeding through his mental shields.

"It was a dream." Veré said gently. Her presence in the Force brushed past her father's like a comforting pat on the shoulder. The shame in Vader rose up again.

_Look at you! Having to be comforted like a youngling by a chil-_

"How long do you have to stay in there?" Veré asked softly. Vader could tell from her tone that she hoped it wasn't long.

_She'd be better off without y-_

"I'll be here when you're done."

With that she laid back down into her nest of blankets and what appeared to be the well-used Bantha plush that Padmé had given her when she was small. Vader had sent a droid to retrieve it from his wife's old apartment when he had still been in the midst of his initial search for his daughter.

Veré curled halfway around the tank and Vader could sense her enjoying the warmth it gave off and the proximity to her father.

The shame that plagued his head and chest faded and was replaced by something like contentment. He allowed the last hour of his cycle in the bacta to finish as he listened to the soft sound of his daughter's breathing through the speakers built into the tank. Originally, he had installed them as a security measure. He supposed this function was satisfactory.

The moment the cycle finished he willed the medical droid to allow him to exit as swiftly as possible. As he waited impatiently for the droid to retrieve his helmet, he felt his daughter's presence appear at his side. She was nearly eye level with the medical table where he lay, enrobed in his obsidian prison, waiting for the claustrophobia that always overwhelmed him when the mask was lowered over his face. Veré inched closer to the table and tentatively placed her hands on his arm, her eyes scanning his face, like she was memorizing it.

The droid returned with the faceplate of his mask and Vader was unable to shield his discomfort from Veré. She gripped his arm tighter, so tight Vader's damaged ears could hear the leather squeak as the mask lowered and clicked into place.

Three seconds passed as the system of his suit engaged. Then, the automatic control of his lungs returned and he heard the tell-tale sound of his mechanical breathing. He sat up slowly and Veré moved her hands to grip one of his. As he stood, he reached down and scooped her up in his arms. One of her hands touched the angular front of his mask. Her face, now colored slightly by the blood-red tint of the lenses that protected his damaged retinas, showed deep concern.

"Do you hurt?" She asked. Vader let out a sigh in the Force and answered into their bond. The words were too hard to voice but they flowed easily through their bond in the Force.

"_All the time."_

Vader carried Veré back past the tank, retrieving her blankets and toy bantha from the floor with the Force.

_If Master Obi-Wan caught me doing this he'd be very grumpy. _

That night, the memory of his wife's smiling face and the weight his daughter asleep in his arms was enough to keep further nightmares from troubling his sleep.


	3. New Face

Working on a Star Destroyer never left one with any regular schedule, especially during an incursion. It was well into the sleep cycle when Vader's First Legion returned from quashing a rebellion deep in the Outer Rim. No one argued with Lord Vader when he disappeared immediately upon return. The debriefs could wait.

The siege had lasted several days longer than Vader had expected and it had been a very long time since he had spent any length of time away from his flagship. He was not truly prepared for the scene that awaited him. The main living quarters, which had long been updated to his daughter's desires, were eerily quiet, which was unusual. Veré was quite acutely attuned to his approaching presence and was typically standing right behind the door whenever he arrived. The room was also incredibly messy, with his daughter's toys and schooling datapads strewn about. The Dark Lord made a mental note to check the motivators on the cleaning droid.

Vader moved deeper into the suite and cast his awareness out to the hallway at the back where there were several rooms, including Veré's bedroom. He found his daughter's presence easily but quickened his pace when he realized he heard shouting. While Veré's room was empty, though equally as messy as the rest of the suite, the room at the end of the hall was not.

"- wake up!" Vader could hear the muffled sound of his daughter's voice from behind the door and could sense her trying to use the Force to aide her. As Vader forced the door open, he called out to his daughter but found her so engrossed in her task that she didn't answer.

The bedroom beyond the door was spartan and had only a bed, chest of drawers, and a desk within. Veré stood at the edge of the bed trying to wake the sleeping boy who was thrashing and softly crying in the bed.

It had been nearly a month since Galen Marek, orphaned son of two errant Jedi Knights, had taken up residence alongside Vader and his now eight year old daughter.

Vader's mission to Kashyyyk had been a simple one, quash a Wookiee rebellion and investigate rumors of Jedi hiding out on the planet. However, when Vader learned from a captured fighter that Kento and Mallie Marek, former Jedi who had left the Order when they fell in love, had been killed weeks prior by Trandoshan slavers, he didn't expect to find anything of note when he reached their crumbling hut.

However, since the appearance of his daughter, the Force had never ceased to surprise Vader. Inside the hut of the former Jedi lovers, which by this time was beginning to crumble from the battle beyond, the Sith apprentice, found a young boy, not much older than his daughter, hiding in a hidden compartment beneath the floor. The boy looked like he hadn't eaten or been cared for properly since the death of his parents. His eyes had deep circles, his face was smudged with dirt, and Vader could sense plainly in the Force that the boy was nearing hysterics from isolation and fear. Initially, the boy shrunk back from Vader, pulled his own burgeoning Force presence around him like a familiar cloak.

Vader could sense great power in him and immediately imagined the boy older, wearing the blackened uniform of an Inquisitor, his eyes a sick yellow. The vision might have been a welcome one a year ago, but Vader's mind quickly turned to his daughter in the same dark fatigues and sporting sickly, yellowed eyes and he physically shuddered. Perhaps sensing the Dark Lord's tumultuous feelings, the boy peered up from his hiding place.

"You're not a Jedi right?" The boy had asked.

"No, little one. I am not." Vader said simply, intrigued by the boy's line of questioning. The boy seemed to consider his words.

Vader continued, "Are you alone, little one?"

The boy's eyes turned down and Vader could feel his whole presence in the Force ache. For a moment, Vader could sense Veré reaching out in the Force down to the planet and he noticed the boy look up, a yearning in his eyes.

Veré's presence reached out to Vader and he felt the mental equivalent of the pouting face his daughter made when she wanted something. With a sigh that did not make it past his vocoder, Vader knelt down and reached out to the boy.

Vader moved to stand beside his daughter, who, until he placed a heavy hand on her shoulder, hadn't even realized her father had returned.

"He won't wake up!" Veré shouted, stepping back to give her father room to kneel beside the bed. "He hasn't slept in three days and he just... passed out. I got him here but then he started screaming." Vader had not heard his daughter sound so distraught, not since she was a baby and was screaming for her mother.

Pushing those painful thoughts aside, Vader dove into the Force and reached out to the boy, who was still yelling his throat dry and speaking incoherently. The boy's poorly constructed mental shields proved inconsequential. He was locked within a dream, not unlike when Anakin Skywalker had experienced visions from the Force, but Galen was reliving a memory over and over again, his parent's deaths. Thankfully, Vader was vastly stronger than his new ward and it took only second to draw him out of the vision and back into the present, gasping for breath.

Veré launched herself at the boy, who was shaking considerably. He tentatively returned her embrace and Vader could hear his crying softly.

"Veré, Galen and I need a moment alone." Veré knew that voice, her father's voice may have been modulated but his tone was always clear. This time it was gravely serious and after quickly squeezing her friend's hand, she padded out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Now alone with the man who had saved him and who terrified him, Galen Marek wiped at his tears.

"I'm sorry Sir. I can't make them stop." The defeated boy placed his head on his knees.

With more compassion than any being outside that secure suite would have imagined, Darth Vader placed a large gloved hand on Galen's back.

"The Force can grant us visions to aid us but it will also reflect our pain." Vader said calmly.

"My father said the Jedi taught him to release his feelings." Galen said, his words full of worry.

"The Jedi were weak minded fools. _You _must learn to use your feelings, they are your feelings alone little one They will allow you to focus your mind and sharpen your will."

_You Forced-damned hypocrite. _The voice in Vader's mind mocked.

Galen took a steadying breath and closed his eyes. Vader could sense the boy trying clumsily to follow his instructions. After a few minutes, Galen's breathing seemed to even out. Satisfied that the boy would be alright, at least for the foreseeable future, Vader sent a clear command of _sleep_ into the Force and the boy flopped back into his bed, sprawled out in exhaustion.

Rising from the floor, Vader took his leave. He found his daughter sleepily tidying the main room, her arms stacked with toys and a far too many datapads.

"That can wait till tomorrow, Veré." Vader said. His daughter nodded and placed the items into a neat pile next to one of the couches. "You need to sleep, little angel." Vader said, kneeling down to pat Veré on the head. The girl rubbed her eyes and spoke through a yawn.

"How did your trip go?" She asked, clearly unwilling to give into her natural impulses to sleep.

With a hidden smile that pulled at the scarring on his face, Vader moved his hand to Veré's temple and sent a strong command to sleep. But she tried to resist.

"No Daddy, n'wanna sleep. Missed you."

Pulling her carefully into his arms, Vader carried Veré back to her room. He used the Force to clear the bed and placed her gently atop the covers. Despite her meager rebellion, the girl was fast asleep within minutes. With two children now, blissfully asleep, Darth Vader marched back out of the suite.

Working on a Star Destroyer never left one with any regular schedule, after all.


	4. Audience

There was once a time when Anakin Skywalker had tried to explain how the Force felt to his wife. It was on a particularly rare occasion when they both had a few days respite from an otherwise endless war.

It hadn't been easy to explain that to Padmé that she felt… warm and safe and firey all at the same time right in his center. Or that he could tell from a buzzing below his feet that the couple downstairs was having their third argument of the night. Or that sometimes he felt a tapping on his right temple that meant Ahsoka was making mischief.

So, when Darth Vader felt a distinct, phantom sensation, like two small hands were squeezing and pulling his right wrist, his eyes shot open in the white bleakness of his mediation chamber. He had been trying to manage a hours worth of fitful sleep, allowing his lungs to breathe the enriched air his chamber provided. But that pulling feeling always meant the same thing. Veré.

Scrambling for the controls to lower his helmet, he cursed the infernal machines and Obi-Wan for good measure. He was exiting the pod before his respirator even had time to take over. Now was not the time for his daughter to be kept waiting.

It was not the first time that Veré Naberrie found herself thinking about her mother.

She asked very rarely about her mother. Her father often thought of his late wife. Sometimes Veré would catch images of her mother bleeding in through the Force. But those flashes of memory were always followed by intense grief and shame. So, she didn't ask, didn't press. She might have been young, and she knew intrinsically that her father would never hurt her but he did have a nasty temper when provoked. Veré wasn't stupid. Her father sometimes did bad things. And she knew that the passing of her mother had been one of those bad things. But she also knew how deeply her father felt. At least that's what she told herself.

So it had come as no surprise that, upon passing her mother's official portrait in the Imperial Palace, her father had quickened his pace. Not that he was walking slow to begin with. They passed dozens of rooms and paintings. More than once, Veré had found herself behind and had quickened her pace to catch up with her father's long strides as he led her through these unfamiliar hallways.

It had been a year and a half since father and daughter had been reunited and Veré honestly surprised that this visit had not happened sooner.

Though Vader often kept the specifics of his daily duties from his daughter, Veré was keenly aware that her father answered only to the Emperor. Her father had never quite explained that he didn't actually like or trust the Emperor but for all the times that he'd urged her to keep her presence in the Force hidden, had prepared her for her eventual meeting with the man, and his general feeling in the Force whenever the man was waiting on the other side of a holocall, Veré had caught on. Her father's reaction to Galen flippantly referring to the Emperor as Vader's "boss" had also been fairly enlightening.

Eventually, they had reached the massive black doors of the Emperor's throne room and Vader had turned back to regard his daughter. She was dressed in a dark, simple dress that looked nothing like the leisure wear she typically sported around their quarters aboard his Star Destroyer. She had also apparently learned to do her own hair into rather well done braids that fell on either side of her head.

Veré felt very out of place and out of sorts but she nodded to her father nonetheless and stepped to his side as the doors parted.

The chamber that lay beyond was even more impressive than the doors but it was horribly dark and Veré found herself squinting to see the man that sat on a boxy, silver throne at the center of the room. She took a careful step into the room and immediately felt cold, colder than she had ever felt in space or when her father was very, very cross. This was an entirely different kind of cold, one that felt like it might freeze her solid and then her shatter into a million shards. This cold felt like it was watching her, appraising her, around her and in her and-

A wry laugh came from the throne.

"My friend, you didn't tell me _the child_ was shy." A dark voice intoned. "Not that you told me much at all." It added without humor.

Veré's senses reached out to her father and though she could still hear the patterned sound of his breathing, his presence in the Force was wavering.

"My friend, I thought we had no secrets among one another?" The Emperor said, with a kindness that Veré would never believe was genuine. She hated that her father kept walking forward and hated it more when she followed. When they both kneeled at the bottom of the stairs that led up to this man, who seemed to think their lives were his, another feeling of Veré's, she thought that the coldness might just swallow her whole. Her whole body clenched when a knobby cane touched her chin and forced her to look up.

Veré felt the oppressive cold hold her solidly in place as the man studied her face. The very sight of his own visage made her want to turn and run but there was no moving now. As soon as the cane came, it went, and Veré fell back on her hands, gasping a little. She felt her father's presence in the Force try to nudge her comfortingly.

The Emperor moved back to sit on his throne while Vader and Veré stayed on their knees. Nothing had ever felt so wrong in her entire life.

"She looks so much like her mother, Vader. Perhaps that's why she's turned you so soft."

Vader raised his helmet fractionally to look the Emperor in the face.

"Master, I-"

"No!"

Veré felt her father be forced back down into the kneeling position.

"Remember your place Lord Vader, it seems your _daughter_," the word was said with more venom than Veré had ever heard, "has made you forget who you serve. Bring in the boy!" The Emperor turned to the Red Guards dragging a gagged and bound figure between them into the room. With his focus momentarily elsewhere, Veré was able to stand and scream.

"Galen!"

The word had barely ripped from her mouth before Veré felt her father's arms encircle her and drag her back just in time to miss the streak of lightning that scorched the ground where she had stood. All at once, Galen was thrown to the ground before the throne and Vader and Veré fell back, landing in an unceremonious pile on the floor. The Guards left without a word.

"Not one but _two _children, two _apprentices."_ The Emperor snarled.

"Master, they aren-" Vader's words died on his scarred lips as the Emperor turned away, his whole focus on Galen. His arms raised and a scream tore from Veré's throat as a fury of blue lightning sprang from the man's bony fingers and pounded into Galen. The boy's screams echoed throughout the chamber.

In a moment of pure fear, Veré pushed herself up from where she had sprawled in her father's lap, using the Force to escape his too slow grasp and burst forward. She took two long steps before she planted herself and pushed her own hands forward. A burst of Force energy blasted into the Emperor's side and while the man didn't fall over as Veré had hoped, he and his barrage of Galen did falter. But the old man was quicker than he looked and the young girl soon found herself on the receiving end of the Emperor's preferred mode of punishment.

Her whole body felt like it was vibrating for a split second before all her muscles contracted painfully and she felt a burning she could not describe. But only for a few seconds and then she was falling hard onto the cold floor. So she felt more than saw her father jump up and race forward, his lightsaber, a sacred thing she had only seen him using in the training room aboard their ship, ablaze in his hand. She also felt his own pain as the same lighting pulsed into his already damaged form. But this time it lasted much longer.

Veré sat up in time to see the Emperor looming over her father, his relentless punishment finally over. She couldn't muster any more energy to move from her place but she looked over at Galen, who was still moaning in pain near the base of the throne. She was so distracted by her friend's plight that she didn't notice the Emperor had moved until his cane came down sharply, a mere handbreadth from her fingers.

She looked apprehensively to where her father lay unmoving on the floor but the cane came and forced her chin, painfully this time, to look up.

"You will not touch me with the Force again child. Am I understood?" The words felt like they were boring into Veré's very soul and the words that sprang unbidden to her lips were equally as vile.

"Yes, Master."

It took Vader the entire length of the living area to realize that the warm hum that usually occupied the first bedroom in the hall, was not there. It had not been there since he and Galen had awoken back in the apartment, the boy locked in his room, and the Dark Lord in his bacta tank.

"You forgot she was gone too?"

Galen had appeared in the hall. The circles under his eyes were far too dark and even in the dim lights of the night cycle, Vader could see the vine-like bruises that Sidious' lighting had left.

All manner of his own scars from that day hadn't faded either.

"Shouldn't we remember?" The boy asked hoarsely. "She's been there like forever."

_Seven weeks and three days._ Vader noted to himself. Three whole military campaigns had been waged in that time.

Galen was looking back at him, a look Vader had never seen on his face.

"How do we stop him? How do we get her back?" He asked both innocently and darkly.

Vader regarded the boy for a moment before speaking and pulling out his lightsaber all at once and faster than Galen had thought possible.

"We train."

Vader surged forward.

Neither of them went back to sleep that night.

Neither as it turned out did Veré Naberrie. Lightyears away, she woke up alone, the phantom feeling of her father's consuming, protecting presence, vanishing like smoke.


	5. The 107th Night

It was on Veré Naberrie's one hundred-seventh night on Coruscant that she finally stopped dreaming about her best friend screaming. Come to think of it, and she'd been doing a lot of thinking lately, it was the first night she had dreamed about anything other than the day the Emperor had decided that a young woman with her heritage deserved more "than to grow up aboard a battleship like some ill- wanted stowaway."

Though Veré hadn't known entirely what many of Sidious's words had meant at the time, she soon learned… and learned… and learned. All it seemed her father's Master wanted was for her to excel at everything.

She started her mornings early, with one of those ghastly red robed guards barging into her monochromatic "room." Truthfully it was more like a cell. There were no windows and no decorations. A plain desk sat in the corner, covered with whatever data pads she was to study that day. The guard always gave her precisely five minutes to dress and prepare herself for physical training in the morning. She spent hours dueling with lightsabers and hand-to-hand. It was usually against the Red Guardsmen or training droids, neither of which went easy on her.

Veré was getting used to seeing her skin mottled with bruises and covered with bacta patches. Despite the intense physical training- torture- Sidious insisted upon for his new pupil, he also insisted there be no scars left. Once, when she'd been only half conscious after a punishment of lightning and a thrashing from one of the more vengeful guards, she'd heard Sidious tell the medic that she was for show. At least she wouldn't be left with any physical scars from all this.

Veré found that as the days went on she cared less and less about what was happening around her. The physical training in the morning was always followed by a trip to the medic, then an afternoon and evening of intense academic schooling. She was learning about politics, military codes, planetary law, all sorts of things, and the Emperor was an exacting headmaster. The tutors he had employed for her were no less strict and she'd found her knuckles wrapped in bacta more than once after making an error, no matter how small.

Whenever the tutors were finished, and it was always late, she was escorted back to her room. A lonely ration bar- that they would force her to eat if she refused, she'd tried that four times before it earned her the sting of force lightning- was her only company.

Her schedule never deviated, until one night she was awakened by an unexpected sound.

Veré rolled over for the sixth time in as many minutes, unable to fall asleep from the absent throbbing of her left shoulder and hip. The pain was a lesson, a gift, Sidious said often. He was preparing her for her future, one where her strength would serve the glory of his Empire. After so many days, she was starting to think he really could see the future.

The sound of her door unlocking was not supposed to happen at night. She had done everything that had been asked of her that day. She'd been able to beat four training droids at once, dutifully eaten every ration bar, and studied all her data pads. Her political science tutor had even complimented her knowledge of Nubian monarchs of the last five hundred years. She had gone to sleep convinced that there would be no raids or punishments this night. But if she had learned anything on Imperial Center, it was that she knew very little about her own future.

She couldn't get up fast enough- kriffing shoulder- before one of the guards was pulling her out of bed. A few months ago, she might have protested or yelled, or stomped her feet. But instead she allowed him to drag her out the door.

Veré was for once grateful that they kept the lights dim in this part of the Palace. By the time her eyes adjusted to the lights, they were… no. They were coming up to the doors of the throne room. She pulled back a little at the hand pulling her forward by her bicep and received a bruising squeeze that almost certainly meant to submit. She held back her yelp as the doors parted.

The throne room was massive, and had a sort of oppressive cold energy that always made her feel like she was suffocating. Her Papa's presence was cold, but nothing like this.

"I thought we had discussed letting go of your childish sentiments, my young pupil." It may have been the middle of Imperial Center's night cycle, but Sidious's voice was as foreboding as ever. Veré stepped forward to the throne and knelt down, her head bowed.

"I forgot myself, Master. I apologize." Her voice sounded flat in her ears. Sidious chuckled darkly to himself.

"I am pleased you have finally learned your manners little one. Come up to me."

Though she climbed the stairs swiftly, Veré felt like she was walking through a duracrete wall. At the top, Sidious waved her to stand at the side of his throne.

"I have a new lesson for you today." He said. Veré held her arms at her back and clutched her wrists to keep them from trembling.

"Yes Master?" She hated how easy the words came to her mind and her lips. She earned a crooked smile in return. Out of one of the many shadowed side entrances, a pair of guards entereded, dragging a humanoid form between them. For a moment, Veré saw Galen there, where he had been months ago. But no, this was a man, much older than her and Galen, maybe older than her father too. There was a sharp, familiar, and painful tap on the shields of her mind. _Focus. _

The quivering man was tossed at the base of the dias and he scrambled to stand before one of the guards brought a force pike down into his back. Veré held back the tasteless ration bar swirling in her stomach. She herself had tried to stand up in the Emperor's presence without permission three times before she'd learned better. Sidious's voice echoed lightly in the chamber as he turned to regard his young pupil. The sound of his words skittering off the walls was like the whispers of dark, ill-meaning creatures.

"This man is a traitor to our Empire."

Veré looked at the man. He was thin, scrawny even, not much of a fighter. Sidious's presence in the force warmed incrementally in amusement.

"Yes, I agree, he doesn't look like much, young one. But looks can be deceiving." Veré nodded slowly. "This man is part of a treasonous group of rebels from the Mid Rim. Last month, their attack on an Imperial shipyard killed fifteen officers and three civilians." Her nose scrunched up at that.

Veré's attunement to the Force had grown in her time with the Emperor, so she felt the frail man's intent to stand up and shout defiantly before he even moved. Two pikes came down this time. Their now familiar buzzing sound rang in her ears.

"Because of this man and his pitiful band, the fleet has been unable to achieve control in the sector." The Emperor sounded sad but Veré could sense his amusement like a foul stench in the air. "Until we learn where the rest of his _friends_ are hiding, I cannot in good conscience bring _Death_ _Squadron_ back to Imperial Center any time soon."

It took everything in Veré not to cry right then and there. She'd spent the last three months studying the entire structure of the Imperial military. She knew exactly who commanded that fleet. Her eyes looked squarely at the floor in front of the throne as Sidious spoke again.

"Could you perhaps find out for me, my dear? I would be most appreciative."

Another thing Veré had learned was that everything had a cost. As she wedged her presence in the Force past the man's meager shields, doing her best to block out the sound of his pleas, she tried not to think of what this would cost her.

That night, Veré's dreams were different for the first time in months. The sight of an older version of herself almost made her miss the screams of her best friend.

—

Halfway across the galaxy, Darth Vader awoke alone in his meditation chamber, unable to dismiss the unbidden images that plagued his mind. A young woman, dressed in black, eyes like the fires of Mustafar, the lightsaber in her hand lit, a massacre littering the ground beneath her booted feet.

The next morning, a command to return to Imperial Center after months away, should have eased his darkened mood. But for the first time since his last trip there, he was afraid of what he would find.


End file.
